CHAPTER IXJOSIE GETS HER BEARINGS
Josie's luck in finding the partially destroyed letters left by the careless Cousin Dink, alias Margery Dubois, alias Hester Broughton, sometimes D. Dingus, made it possible for her to pass up the doubtful privilege of sleeping in the clean sheets provided for her by Betty. That afternoon she went back to her employer, received all necessary instructions concerning the campaign she was to wage in Atlanta in the line of household novelties and jeweled specialties and, after paying Mrs. Pete for the room she had decided not to occupy, she took the night train for the South.
Before she left Dorfield Josie had time to run in on the Higgledy-Piggledies for a few moments, long enough to say "howdy" to her partners and to leave directions for having her mail forwarded. She found Mary Louise having a chat with Elizabeth Wright.
"You are the very one I wanted to see, dear," she cried. "I want to ask you to keep an eye on little Polly and Peter. Make friends with them even more than you have and if they let drop anything else about their past please wire it to me. Now I'm going to pack up some of my own especial duds. I may have to redisguise myself as my real self before I get through with this adventure. In that case I must have my own clothes with which to do it."
"Before you go, you comet you, please tell us what has happened so far," begged Mary Louise.
Josie smiled, her ever-cheery smile.
"Nothing much except I landed my job and will get all my expenses. I mean to do good work for my boss. If I get pushed for time I'll get an assistant and pay her well to do his work—all that I can't accomplish myself. I am supposed to hire canvassers when I get to Atlanta and open up a kind of office for the time being. The letter I wrote myself puffing Miss Sally Blossom as a person little short of perfect got the boss going. Now I'll have to make good. I am almost sorry I boosted myself up so in his estimation. It's an awful strain sometimes to make good."
"But you can do it I feel sure, you funny old Josie," cried Mary Louise. "Now be sure to write us what you do and what you find out. If I didn't think Danny would miss me too much I'd go with you just for the experience."
"Heavens! You with your countenance so ingenuous that you'd give the whole thing away the first dash out of the box. You are too honest to engage in such a frame-up as this, Mary Louise."
"I'm no more honest than you are."
"Well, perhaps our fundamentals are about the same, but I have to pretend to be a lot of things I am not, to work out my principles and I am sure you couldn't pretend to be anything but just dear, sweet Mary Louise Dexter if your life, or even your dear Danny's life, depended on it. Could you paint your face and be a vulgar minx as I am being just now?"
"I—I—don't know."
"I bet you could," put in Elizabeth. "You have never yet failed to do what it was up to you to do and I believe you could even do that."
Mary Louise laughed. "I could but try if my doing it would help anybody. Good luck to you, Josie dear!"
And the next moment Josie was gone on her great adventure.
Atlanta had on its smiling, spring face when Josie arrived. The air was soft and balmy and everything smelt of violets. They were growing everywhere, on the poor streets as well as the more pretentious ones. A house was lowly indeed that did not boast a bit of yard with borders of violets by fence and walk. Old colored women sat on the corners with huge bunches of violets for sale. Pretty girls walked on the streets with corsage bouquets of the fragrant flowers.
"Poor little Polly and Peter! No wonder they are homesick for Atlanta," was Josie's first thought.
She found lodgings in a quaint little old hotel called the Elberta Inn. Everything in Atlanta seemed to Josie to have something to do with peaches—Peachtree Street, West Peachtree Street, Peachtree Terrace, Peachtree Gardens. Then hotels and inns bore the name where they could and others named themselves after famous brands of peaches, such as Elberta.
"What's in a name?" sighed Josie when, at her very first dinner in her new quarters, dried apple pies were shamelessly served.
The landlady of the Elberta Inn was as thin as the landlady at 126 East Centre was fat. Her name was Miss Oleander Denton. She was quick to let each prospective guest know that she had seen better days.
"My grandfather would turn over in his grave if he knew that one of his female descendants was at work and all," she whispered to Josie. "We owned thousands of acres and hundreds of slaves and all."
Sometimes Miss Oleander was known to reverse this statement, having her grandfather own hundreds of acres and thousands of slaves. Whatever it was, poor Oleander was certainly hard at work now. Perhaps her proud grandfather was saved from turning over in his grave by the fact that his male descendants were not inclined to work. Old Mr. Denton—Major he was called by the boarders—had never been known to do a day's work in his life and Miss Oleander had a brother, Braxton, who was occupied only during the races.
"I should think your grandfather would be proud that you are so capable," suggested Josie.
"Oh, not at all," sighed Miss Oleander. "Efficient women were not considered ladylike in my grandfather's time—that is not efficient enough to make a living. They could be good housekeepers and all." Miss Denton always ended every sentence with "and all." It could mean anything and nothing.
Josie felt she had found exactly the right place. She was sure that Miss Oleander could tell her about the Wallers and Chester Hunt, and what she didn't know Major Denton would. Josie had modified her appearance somewhat, lengthened her skirts, discarded the strings of beads, left off the paint and powder except for a becoming dash and put away her lip-stick until she might have use for it. She still clung to the bobbed henna wig with its permanent wave. That in itself completely changed the appearance of the usually demure Josie.
"First I must get my bearings," she mused, as she settled herself in the shabby hall bedroom, that had the one advantage of overlooking the great and only Peachtree Street.
On a shelf in her room she found an old telephone book. Stephen Waller's name and address were given. The house proved to be only three doors from the Elberta Inn, which had been a private residence in former years. By the telephone in the hall near Josie's door hung a new, down-to-date book. She looked for Stephen Waller's name in it. It was not there. She then looked for Chester Hunt's name. It was given and the address was the same as Stephen Waller's had been.
"So he is living in the old home!" A picture of the children arose in Josie's mind, their forlorn condition, ragged, worn clothes and hungry eyes. Then she thought of the room at Mrs. Pete's where they had lived before they had gone to the Children's Home and her mouth tightened. "I'll show him a thing or two before I get through," she muttered.
Before dinner that evening she went out for a walk. She turned to the left from Elberta Inn and sauntered along as though she had no object in life, and from the vacant expression on her face one might think she had no more intelligence than object. Josie had the faculty of appearing dull and stupid. A fishy look would come in her clever eyes and she could assume the expression of a moron. She was apt to take on this facial disguise whenever she was deeply interested in a case.
There was the Waller house on the corner, a handsome structure of pure colonial architecture. The grounds around it were spacious for a city, with box bushes whose size were indicative of their great age. The walls of the house were almost covered with thick English ivy, but the weathered pink of the old brick asserted itself in spots. The yard, front and sides, had flower beds bordered with violets and the formal walks were also indicated by rows of the fragrant flower. Magnolia trees with glossy leaves and great white waxen blossoms shaded the house and over the brick wall, that extended down the side street, leaned fig trees.
Peachtree Street runs along the top of a ridge and the side streets slope from it. This means that the houses must be built with basements in the rear. Usually the kitchen and servants' quarters are in this basement. Josie's walk led her down the side street. In the wall near the end of the lot was a green door, no doubt the servants' and tradesmen's entrance. Facing on the alley was a large garage, the door of which was open. There was little sign of life about the place. Josie noticed some belated clothes hanging on a line in the back yard. By tiptoeing she could see over the wall. The wash was that of a man, rather sporty striped shirts and socks of many colors.
"Mighty late to be having the wash still hanging out," said Josie to herself. "Having trouble with servants, I wager. Hope so, anyhow."
As she started to cross the alley the honk of a horn warned her of the approach of an automobile. She stepped back and a big touring car turned into the alley. Josie looked up. A very handsome man of about forty was alone in the car, which he drove with great skill. He directed his car into the garage with noiseless shifting of gears.
Josie eyed him dully, which meant that not one detail of his countenance or clothing escaped her. She even noted the make of the car. The man glanced casually at Josie but she was nothing more than a pedestrian crossing the alley to him, and a stupid-looking pedestrian at that, who did not cross the alley even when she had a chance. Josie stood for a moment after the car had passed the crossing.
"Could that be Chester Hunt?" she mused. "If so, he is not my idea of a villian in appearance. He is too pleasant looking and his countenance is entirely too open and engaging. Too good looking, in fact! I was looking for a black-browed villain with selfishness and deviltry written all over his face. If that is he then woe be to poor Dink and Mrs. Waller! When evil has so much the appearance of good it is difficult to combat."
She crossed the alley and continued her walk, not returning to the Elberta Inn by way of the Waller house. She did not want the inmates of that house, whoever they might be, by any chance to become familiar with her face and form, disguised or natural.
It was too late in the evening to see about an office and the business of making good as a saleswoman for household necessities and jeweled novelties, but it was not too late to get a pretty good idea of the city and a general notion of the kind of persons who made Atlanta their home. Josie walked for an hour, noting and remembering the names of the streets, the lines of trolleys, the principal hotels and clubs and many other things that an ordinary tourist would have passed by or forgotten in a moment. She stopped at a drug store and bought a map of the city. Then when she got home she traced on the map the streets she had traversed or followed in her walk.
"Now I am beginning to get my bearings," she declared as she freshened up a bit for dinner. "I mustn't let myself slump into too great respectability," she grinned at herself in the mirror.
CHAPTER XAT MISS DENTON'S DINNER TABLE
Seven o'clock dinner at Elberta Inn was a function in spite of the dried apple pies. Miss Oleander Denton always insisted upon making of it a real dinner party. It seemed as though, for the hour, she attempted to forget that her guests were paying ones. To her black silk gown she gave a festive air by turning it in at the neck, thereby exposing her too prominent clavicles, but the effect was softened by a beautiful old lace collar and a large cameo breastpin of rare workmanship, depicting a lady in hoop skirts by a grave, over which leant a weeping willow tree. Major Denton wore a rusty dress suit and a carnation in his buttonhole. The boarders dressed or not as they chose, but as a rule they played up to Miss Oleander's role of hostess and appeared at dinner in festive raiment.
The table was set with care and taste, but Josie found the food no better than the one meal she had eaten at Mrs. Pete's in Dorfield. Mrs. Pete's cabbage and the accompanying corned beef had been excellent, although the table had been covered with a red cloth, the crockery of the thickest, unbreakable variety and a large toothpick holder the only ornament. Miss Denton always had flowers on the table and her china was what remained in the family after the administration of the hundred slaves. It did not match but it was all good, some thin porcelain with a gold band, some Canton whose blue made Josie homesick for the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop and the little breakfast set, a gift from Mary Louise.
The great difference between 126 East Centre and the Elberta Inn lay in the type of boarders. A wider gulf existed between the clientele of the two places than that between a red table cloth and a fine damask one, or Canton china and Mrs. Pete's heavy stone crockery, or a vase of roses and a toothpick holder.
Most of the boarders were permanent ones and while it was a rule of the house to resent transients, they were secretly welcome because of the added zest they gave to the humdrum of everyday life. The permanent guests of Elberta Inn knew only too well all about each other and it was a relief to have outsiders to pick on in spite of the ignominy of having to sit down to meals with persons whose antecedents might be doubtful. Elberta Inn was of the old South. The inroad of Western and Northern capital had not touched the Maison Denton. To be sure the transients who occasionally bore down upon them were often northerners or westerners but they did not represent much capital or they would have put up at a first-class hotel. This the boarders who called Elberta Inn home year in and year out well understood and so it was all transients were more or less looked down upon. They were not rich or they would not be there and they were hardly well born, since they were not born in the South. Of course they sympathized with Miss Oleander in wanting to rent her rooms and the fact that a much higher board was charged transients than permanents made transients somewhat desirable if too long intervals did not elapse between their goings and comings.
All of the foregoing Josie gathered at her first dinner. She was introduced with great eclat by her hostess. The party was seated as she came into the dining room and down one side of the table and up the other Miss Oleander called the names, each time repeating Josie as
"
Miss Blossom, Colonel Brent; Miss Blossom, Miss Kite-Smith; Miss Blossom, Mrs. Bucknow; Miss Blossom, Major Dugan; Miss Blossom, Mrs. Claiborne; Miss Blossom, Judge Tuttle; Miss Blossom, my father, Major Denton," and so forth and so on down a line of twenty.
Josie felt she had never been among so many titles in all her life. She recalled some lines from an opera of Gilbert and Sullivan's:
Note to self: These lines are indented.
"With admirals the ocean teemed
A
nd bishops in their shovel hats
W
ere cheap as any tabby cats,
I
n point of fact too many."
"The women have no titles but their names sound so aristocratic," she thought. "Why, oh, why did I choose such a silly name as Blossom? There were plenty of nice plain names that would have done me just as well and I wouldn't feel such a fool when I am introduced. I thought Miss Oleander would never get through calling out Blossom."
She was relieved to find that her henna wig was not so very much out of place. Miss Hite-Smith was blondined in the back, with a transformation in the front that did not quite match and all of the aristocratic dames had resorted to cosmetics of one kind or another. Powder predominated but an occasional dash of rouge gave color to the party.
Dinner was in courses, served by two colored maids whose social strata must have been about that of Betty's at Mrs. Pete's. To be sure they had on white caps and aprons, garnishings of which Betty boasted not, but their motions were reminiscent of the cornfield, as though they might still be walking over ploughed ground.
Josie could not help thinking that perhaps the grandfather, he of the hundreds of slaves and thousands of acres, would have turned over in his grave again if he could have seen the type of repast served on his beautiful old china. There was course after course but each was merely a sample, from soup to coffee. Josie remembered the heaping plate of cabbage and corned beef with the hunk of corn bread at Mrs. Pete's with regretful sentiment.
"Blossom, Blossom! Did I hear aright, young lady?" asked Judge Tuttle. "Is your name Blossom?"
"Yes, sir," said Josie, respectfully, but wishing in her heart the old gentleman would not insist on that absurd name, "Sally Blossom!"
"Ah, and from what part of the country do you come?"
"Washington," answered Josie, thankful that at one time she had lived there—was living there in fact when her father, Detective O'Gorman, died. "I have been in Dorfield lately, though, on business."
"My grandmother's maiden name was Blossom," continued the judge, "and strange to say, it was also Sally, or Sarah by the time she got to be my grandmother. But she was a Virginian, a Virginian of tide-water fame. What Blossom are you?"
"Just Blossom, sir; a blooming Blossom! My father was English," she said in desperation. "At least I think he was. He died before he was born—I mean I was born."
"Ah, very sad!" ventured the Judge and Miss Hite-Smith thought so too. Josie, for her part, thought he was much better dead—that fictitious Blossom. This questioning was more than she had bargained for. People usually let her do the questioning. She rather fancied it was the bobbed wig and the artificial complexion that made persons like the judge notice her.
"That is a beautiful old house on the corner near here," she ventured.
"You mean the Haskins?" spoke up Miss Denton. "Yes, it is very handsome, no doubt, but too ornate and pie-crusty for my—taste." Then a discussion ensued concerning architecture, old and new.
"I mean the house going East from this place," put in Josie, not at all interested in the Haskins house. "The old home with the ivy and the box-bushes in the yard."
"Oh, the Waller house!" said Major Denton. "That is perhaps the finest specimen of the old South left in the city. It was saved from the Yankee invasion by a piece of luck."
He then plunged into war reminiscences that lasted through three courses, his table companions listening with bored politeness.
"Do the same people still live there?" asked Josie, after Major Denton had fired the last shot for states' rights.
"Well, they do and they don't," began the Major.
"I can't see why you say they do," broke in Judge Tuttle. "Chester Hunt hasn't an ounce of Waller blood in his veins."
"Indeed he has," declared Mrs. Claiborne. "Chester Hunt's mother's great-grandmother was a niece of old Edmund Waller's, the English founder of the Waller family. That is a well-known fact."
"Ah, yes, a niece but—ah, well—the presence of ladies would deter my pressing my point," said Judge Tuttle, who then whispered sibilantly to a pink-cheeked old man across the table.
"As I was saying," continued Major Denton, "they do and they don't. The present occupant of the Waller mansion is a stepbrother of Stephen Waller's. He, poor fellow, was killed during the war, the world war, I mean, not the war between the states."
"Yes," breathed Josie, "and the stepbrother inherited his property?"
"Oh, no, there is a widow and two children. A very sad story, very sad! The widow has been crazed by grief and I hear is hopelessly insane. The two children have been placed in care of an excellent woman and are now living near their mother, so if she should ever ask for them they can be reached quickly. She has shown no sign as yet of wanting to see them. A sad case!"
"Yes, and I wouldn't trust those sanitariums," spoke Miss Oleander. "They are often very tricky."
"Neither would I," said a young woman across the table from Josie. Her name was Miss Chisholm and she had the distinction of being in business. The ladies at Miss Denton's were not the type to be in business.
"But Chester Hunt has been to the place again and again and says his step-sister-in-law is receiving every attention and is being watched with the greatest care. She is raving, so he says, and he is very sad over it. Chester Hunt is a fine young fellow in spite of the unkind things some persons say about his great-great-grandmother," declared Mrs. Claiborne, vindictively.
"I don't like him," asserted Miss Chisholm.
"Indeed!" and Mrs. Claiborne eyed Miss Chisholm through her lorgnette. "He is very popular with young ladies." There was a slight accent on the ladies.
"Popular enough with girls who see him in society but you ask stenographers how they like him," flushed Miss Chisholm.
"I am hardly likely to converse with stenographers on the subject of Mr. Hunt," was the insolent answer.
Josie determined to cultivate Miss Chisholm and to give Mrs. Claiborne a wide berth.
"Where has the poor lady been put?" Josie asked Miss Oleander,
"Somewhere in New York, I think!"
"Not at all! The place is an excellent one near Washington," said Mrs. Claiborne.
"Hunt told me himself it was in Indiana," said Judge Tuttle. "I had some business to settle for him. You see he is the executor and administrator of Stephen Waller's estate. Naturally he was appointed guardian of the children by the court.
"I understand they are a very unruly pair," went on Mrs. Claiborne. "It seems it was their selfishness and naughtiness that gave their poor mother her final breakdown. I hate to think it of Stephen Waller's children, but I hear it on all sides. Chester Hunt can hardly control himself when the subject comes up. He has done everything for them but they have behaved so very badly. Mother spoiled them, I reckon."
"Why, that's too bad," put in kind Miss Oleander. "I used to see them playing in their yard and I was much attracted by them. I don't see how such sweet-looking children could be so very naughty."
"Nonsense!" cried Miss Chisholm. "My cousin taught little Polly Waller and she says she was the most tractable child she has ever had in her class. The boy was too young for school, but I happened to hear his kindergarten teacher discussing the family with my cousin and she said Peter was a love of a boy and clever beyond anything. He is a born leader, so she said."
"They are sneaky," asserted Mrs. Claiborne. "I have heard of many sneaky underhand things they have done. Poor Chester Hunt, I don't envy him the job of guardian."
"Neither do I," said Josie to herself.
"He has had a great deal of trouble with servants lately," said Miss Hite-Smith. "I hear he is not trying to keep up the whole house but it takes several servants to maintain any kind of cleanliness in such a huge house. He is advertising for white maids, so I hear. It seems the colored ones think the place is haunted."
"He is advertising for white maids!" Josie repeated to herself.
CHAPTER XIJOSIE ENGAGES AN ASSISTANT
Josie regretted her job. Life was becoming complicated, what with trying to organize a force of canvassers for household necessities and jewel novelties when every moment of her waking hours must be spent trying to find out the true inwardness of the affair concerning Peter and Polly and their demented mother. Her boss was trusting her, so she must make good. And had she not, as Josie O'Gorman, highly recommended Miss Sally Blossom? It was doubly up to her to deliver the goods. So she thought as she sat in her little hall bedroom and went over in her mind all she had learned that day.
There was a tap on her door. It was Miss Chisholm coming to call.
"I thought you might be lonesome," she said. "The guests of this house are not very friendly to 'outsiders,' as they designate everybody who hasn't been living at Miss Denton's since the flood. I liked the way you shut up Judge Tuttle about your family name. The folks here talk all the time about who's who. Sometimes I try to switch them over to what's what but I can't keep them long from their beloved genealogical dope."
"I didn't mean to shut him up," laughed Josie. "I was rattled to beat the band."
Josie looked keenly at her visitor. Honesty was written all over her countenance—wide-open grey eyes, delicately tip-tilted nose and large, frank mouth that laughed easily, and at the end of a laugh shut decisively.
"I liked the way you spoke out concerning Chester Hunt and stood up for the poor kiddies, too," said Josie earnestly.
"It got me in bad with old Lady Claiborne, but I am dead tired of these people here blindly accepting that man just because he is so all-fired handsome. I believe he is crooked, but he is mighty popular with the general run of people. The stenographers all hate him and there are a few business men who don't trust him but he seems to be able to hoodwink the society set. He has beautiful manners and is gentle and graceful until he forgets himself and then look out! I feel in my bones he is double dealing and I can't think what the Wallers' friends are thinking of to let him take their affairs in hand as he does without ever investigating a thing."
"But he is executor of Mr. Waller's estate, is he not?"
"Oh, yes, he is all that and I reckon nobody has a right to say a word. Now, he is guardian of the children. The idea of that old hag's saying those children are so naughty they ran their mother crazy! It makes me sick. They are precious kids."
"They certainly are," agreed Josie. Miss Chisholm looked at her in astonishment.
"Do you know them?"
"Yes," said Josie, "I know them very well. Miss Chisholm, I'm going to do a rather cheeky thing. I'm going to force my confidence on you and make you party to a secret—that is, I am going to do it if you have no objection. It won't implicate you in any way and won't involve any work unless you choose to let it. I want your advice and I want your outlook. I need hardly say that this is of a most confidential nature. May I impose on you?"
"Yes, you may, but before you do, please tell me why you think I am worthy," asked Miss Chisholm, her eyes shining with excitement.
"The way you shut your mouth and open your eyes," laughed Josie. "The way you stood up for the kids and were not afraid to speak your mind concerning a man who has in some way got the majority for him. Of course I can't say I am never mistaken about people but I am pretty safe to hit it right once in a while and I have a hunch I have hit it right with you. I am rather meek just now concerning my powers of reading character by countenance, because I am sure if I had not had a preconceived idea of what Chester Hunt is I should have trusted him because of his handsome face. He is one of the best-looking villains I ever saw."
"Oh, you know him too, then?"
"No, I have only seen him. I haven't been in Atlanta long enough to know him yet, but I saw him drive up in his car and enter the garage at the Waller house."
"You knew all about who lived there all the time you were asking, then," smiled Miss Chisholm.
"Not all about it but a little and I wanted to get the outlook of Miss Denton's boarders."
"Heavens above! I believe you are a detective," cried Miss Chisholm.
J
osie chuckled delightedly.
"Exactly! A detective but a very humble one. My father was a great detective, one of the best the United States has had. O'Gorman was his name."
"Of course I have heard of him. And you are his daughter and not Sally Blossom. No wonder you had to cut Judge Tuttle off short. Oh me, oh my, but I'm having a good time!"
"So am I, but I've bitten off more than I can chew. When I am at home I go talk things over with the chief of police or one of my partners and I seem mighty far off just now with a big thing on hand and no one to go to. I'm not cry-babying, but just want to gas along on the subject for a while. I have a kind of idea you can help me a lot."
"Well, cut loose," commanded Miss Chisholm. "By the way, my name is Alice—Alice Chisholm."
"All right, Alice Chisholm. Mine is Josie O'Gorman, but I'd better be Sally Blossom for a while yet."
Then Josie told her new friend all about the Children's Home Society of Dorfield and her friend Mary Louise Dexter's donation to the Home and how the little Polly and Peter had come to the office with the person known as Cousin Dink. She told of finding the letters in the grate at Mrs. Pete's, of all the children had let drop concerning their home life and their sad wanderings with Cousin Dink.
"And now I am on the war path to see if there isn't something to be done for those poor kiddies. If they stay at the Home they will have to be adopted sooner or later—maybe separated and that would be a tragedy indeed."
She showed the letters from Chester Hunt to the cousin.
"Whew! Wouldn't some of these society girls throw fits if they knew about this Dink person?" laughed Alice. "But what is it you want me to do? I am crazy about helping but how can I?"
Then Josie told of the job she had as a canvasser and her feeling that the detective work was going to take all her time. "I thought I'd find out things as a canvasser and never dreamed of how easy it was to get boarders to talking and find out that way. Now I hear that Chester Hunt is advertising for white servants and of course my stunt would be to apply at once for the place of housemaid or even cook."
"How funny! Would you really do that?"
"Sure I I've done it before, and under my father's orders, but that is another story. But I must make good with my boss on this canvassing. He has trusted me and it is up to me to deliver the goods."
"Why don't you get an assistant?"
"That is what I mean to do, but where?"
"I'm open to inducements," declared Alice seriously. "You see I am a free-lance in business. My job is doing publicity work for any and every concern that feels like paying me. I have nothing on hand just now, but am expecting a deal to come my way to-morrow. I don't have to take it if they are in a hurry, but can turn it down and take up your canvassing business. I have an office of my own—nothing but a tiny hole in the wall but it will serve as headquarters. I can get in touch with plenty of women to canvass for you in a little or no time. The office next to mine is that of the Vocational Bureau for Women. They fly higher than this kind of job usually but I reckon there are enough unemployed females on their books who would jump at the chance to earn a few dollars."
"Good! I am a fortunate person. My supplies will be along to-morrow. I shall have them sent to your office and you can get busy as fast as you can."
The girls then had a serious business talk. The question of remuneration was satisfactorily settled.
"I wonder, now, if you could write me a reference for his nibs, Chester Hunt. I want to apply for the job of housemaid this very night. It isn't too late, do you think?"
"I'll do it immediately," laughed Alice. "What must I say?"
"That I am honest and willing and capable. I am all those things, I can assure you. Perhaps you won't think so when you see me get back to normalcy. I must change my make-up if I want a job as house servant. I think I'll be a Swede. Josie Larson will be a good name. I must say I feel better if I'm Josie. I'm always afraid I'll forget to answer as Sally."
Alice Chisholm's eyes danced merrily as she watched Josie O'Gorman make herself ready to apply for a housemaid's position. First the henna wig was pulled off and Josie brushed out her neat sandy braids that had been tightly coiled around her head. She parted her hair in the middle and then pulled it tightly back in a hard knot, carefully disclosing her ears, something no person of any breeding was supposed to do at that time. The knot was placed at exactly the wrong angle, giving a strangely comic look to her profile. The georgette dinner dress was discarded for the tweed suit but the suit was so put on that all semblance of natty cut was lost. The skirt was on slightly askew and pulled up in front and down in the back. The belt to the Norfolk jacket was drawn too tight and the effect was blousy from the rear and what Alice called "a poor white folk's tuck" in the fore. Josie's sailor hat she placed on the back of her head, carefully pulling it down so that one ear was pushed down by the crown. The despised rouge was wiped from her cheeks and artistically applied to her nose—not much, but just a suspicion.
"Splendid! Splendid!" cried Alice. "I don't believe you will need a reference. You would have to be honest to look like that."
The reference was written, however, and signed A. Chisholm. With it tightly clasped in a hand upon which Josie had drawn a large white cotton glove, a finishing touch to her costume, the would-be housemaid silently crept from the Elberta Inn and, with an extra dull look in her eyes, rang the front door bell at the Waller house.
CHAPTER XIICHESTER HUNT'S NEW MAID
"Nobody home!" was Josie's disappointed verdict after she had waited a few minutes and there was no response to her ring. She rang again, this time with sharp decision. She heard the opening of a door upstairs and then the lower hall was flooded with light and a sound of quick, light footsteps on the stairs and the front door was jerked open somewhat impatiently. Josie looked stolidly into the handsome countenance of Chester Hunt.
"Well, what is it?" he asked brusquely, taking in with some amusement the awkward little figure before him.
"I bane come to work for you."
"Oh! In answer to my ad?"
"Sure!"
"What can you do?"
"Anything with my hands but I bane not much good on head work."
"Can you clean a house and serve a meal?"
"Yah!"
"Perhaps you can cook too!"
"I can cuke some."
"What nationality are you?"
"I bane Luther."
"German?" smiling.
"Naw! I bane Swede," and Josie permitted an expression of disgust to flit over her otherwise blank countenance.
"Well, when can you go to work?"
"How much you bane pay?"
"Of course! How stupid of me! What do you ask?"
"I ask twelve dollar a week for cuking and ten dollar a week for claneuping but I bane get less than I ask. If I do cuking and claneuping both together I ask fifteen dollar a week but I bane come to you and see how you suit me for twelve. I bane a bum at telegraphing."
"You mean telephoning?"
"Yah, telephoning, but I bane willing to learn. Have you bane keeping other help?"
"I try to but they have all left me lately. Would you work with colored people?"
"You bane meaning blacks? I do not love them but if you try me you find I do twice three time as much work as blacks."
"And your name?"
"Miss Josie Larson!"
"All right, Miss Josie Larson, suppose you come in the morning and go to work."
"I bane come tomorrow night and cuke the dinner. I got other business on hand for morning."
"Well, I'm sorry, but I fancy I can get along without you for twelve hours longer. Now, mind you, come in time. I have dinner at seven."
"I bane coming at five. Do you to market go yourself?"
"I'll have provisions in the house ready for you. After tomorrow you will have to do the housekeeping as well as cooking. If I have a friend in to dinner could you serve two of us?"
"Sure! I bane smart enough to serve eight if you have knives and forks to go round."
Josie made a stiff bow and backed awkwardly down the steps. When the door was closed she turned quickly and literally ran back to the Elberta Inn. She got safely to her room without being seen by any of the aristocratic boarders.
Alice Chisholm was waiting for her.
"Well, how about it?"
"Got my job as chief cook and bottle washer with the handsome Chester Hunt and will cook dinner for him tomorrow evening. In the meantime I have some work ahead of me. What I would have done without you, Alice, I do not see. I should have been forced to double-cross my boss, and I'd have hated it. My father always preached being faithful in small things."
The next day was a busy one for Josie as well as Alice Chisholm. Josie must lay in a supply of maid's uniforms, aprons and caps. She must write letters to Mary Louise and her partners of the Higgledy-Piggledy, also a business epistle to her boss of the household necessities and jeweled novelties. A cook book must be purchased of the latest and most approved recipes, Josie having mastered only a few of the simpler dishes, but she had always declared that the keynote to cookery was gumption and with a good recipe and plenty of that ingredient she could master even anything as intricate as angel's food.
"I can make biscuit and coffee and waffles and scrambled eggs and tea and cinnamon toast, too. I know so many ways to please an arch-villain," she said to Alice.
"And I know how to make batter bread and jelly roll. I am certainly coming to see you some time and show you my stunts," said Alice.
"Fine but you will have to be a Swede. I didn't ask my new employer about company but I guess he won't object, just so I give him something fit to eat and clean up his house."
Alice Chisholm took over the business of getting canvassers and planning the work with such efficiency that Josie was delighted. "I never could have done it so well. I know the boss will thank his stars that I had to go cook for Chester Hunt and was forced to employ a so-called assistant."
"I am quite crazy about it," said Alice. "I always loved organizing and bossing and it so happens I am always the one to be organized and directed. Now, my talents have full scope. I am going to canvass some myself and I tell you I am going to show some of these women how to work."
At five o'clock, sharp, Josie was installed in the kitchen of the old Waller house.
"
You will find the raw materials in the refrigerator. I am to have a gentleman to dine with me. Dinner at seven." Chester Hunt's tone was one of command and his manner not an agreeable one. Josie could well understand that the girls in the business world did not find him so agreeable as the society girls.
"All right, sir! I bane on time. Must I cuke everything I find in the refrigerator?"
"Heavens, no! Just get up a good dinner. If you don't know how you better say so and get out before you start."
"I bane asking, but if you don't want me to ask I bane smart enough to yump in."
"All right then 'yump in,'" he said, laughing in spite of being in a decidedly bad temper.
Josie "yumped in" with a will. By the process of selection from what she found in the pantry and refrigerator she concocted a good dinner and had it on the table at seven o'clock. This was something of a feat, because every cooking utensil had to be scoured before she could use it and even the china and silver was not fit to put on the table without a thorough washing.
"My, I wish I had Elizabeth Wright's mother here!" Josie said to herself. "Wouldn't she have the time of her life getting this place cleaned up?"
The drop-leaf mahogany table in the beautiful old dining room looked very inviting when Josie informed the master:
"Dinner bane served up, sir!"
A low bowl of violets and early hyacinths that the new maid had found blooming in the back yard were reflected in the polished surface of the mahogany. The table must perforce be bare as all the tablecloths in the house were soiled. She had found some lacy mats which she had washed and ironed hurriedly. The silver and glass were polished to the nth degree. The master looked his approval and actually smiled at the clever maid but Josie's eyes were dull and fishy and on her face nothing was expressed but dense stupidity. She proceeded to serve the dinner with meticulous care, thankful for the training she had had at the Higgledy-Piggledy tea room. Not one false move did she make in her service, but not once did she allow a gleam of intelligence to flicker across her countenance.
"Where did you make your find?" asked the guest, who turned out to be Braxton Denton, Miss Oleander's horse-racing brother, a middle-aged man with a flashy cravat and a crooked mouth.
"She found me. She seems to be a good enough servant considering she is so marvelously stupid."
Josie overheard the conversation as she removed the soup plates. In the pantry she permitted herself the luxury of a grin and after she slid the broiled pompano from the grill to the fish plates she let off more steam by a pirouette that a premiere danseuse might have envied.
Silently and efficiently she served the whole meal, managing to efface herself so utterly that the two men talked as freely as though they had been alone in the dining room.
"Gloomy old house!" said Braxton Denton. "I wonder you hang on here."
"It has been my home ever since I was a boy and I am more comfortable here than I would be at a hotel. I am very fond of this place. The property would run down terribly, too, if I let it stand vacant. It is only gloomy because I can't get anyone to keep it in order. The servants have all left and I don't seem to be able to get any more—not until this girl came last night. How long she will stick I can't tell."
"Until I find out what I want to know," muttered Josie to the empty fish plates as she bore them off.
"How is your sister-in-law getting?"
"No better," with a heavy sadness in his tone. "I am afraid the case is a hopeless one. I get daily reports from the sanitarium and they are most discouraging."
"And the children?"
"Oh, they are in excellent hands, both of them well. They never ask for their mother, however, nor does she ask for them. It is a strange case—one almost of antagonism. They have shown the strangest lack of feeling in regard to their mother and she seems really to hate them. I can hardly blame her because while they are only little children their callousness is positively diabolical."
Josie permitted herself the slight revenge of sprinkling a little extra pepper on her master's English mutton chop.
"Very imprudent of me, but I hope he will sneeze his handsome nose off," she said, giving the pepper box another shake.
She had her wish. His handsome nose didn't exactly come off but it was not for lack of sneezing.
"Kerchoo! Kerchoo!" he gasped for breath, choking and sneezing at the same time.
"Heavens, girl!" he finally sputtered. "How much pepper do you usually put on chops?"
"Mine is fine," ventured his guest.
"Excuse, please," and Josie gave a stiff curtsy. "My foot slipped and I bane put more pepper than I meant."
His feelings were soothed by a caramel pie. After dinner he came to the pantry door and called the new maid to him.
"You have done very well, all but over seasoning the chops."
"The chop!" corrected Josie.
"I think you will be able to do the work. I want breakfast at eight. You must look after my mail carefully. Most of my mail comes to my residence. I shall expect you to do the marketing and not bother me with details of housekeeping. Do you need any assistance with the cleaning? I fancy everything is pretty dirty."
"Filthy!" ejaculated Josie, "but I bane strong."
"All right! You understand about looking after my mail carefully, do you not?"
"Yah! I yoost put it on the desk. I bane take care."
How much care she did not think it advisable to tell him, but his mail was one of the things to which Josie was determined to give much attention.